I'm a Believer
by HollyC
Summary: Eddie's thoughts after the episode Believers


**I'm a Believer by HollyC**  
  
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the fw production team; Fw production, Peace Arch, Larry Sugar, Francis Ford Coppola and Pearson Television. Not forgetting Chris Brancato.  
  
Borrowed with respect and for no profit. My ideas, their characters.  
Spoilers for Believers  
  
Stream of consciousness. Eddie's point of view.  
  
I'm a Believer   
  
PG 13 (Some strong language and adult themes)  
  
  
They call me crazy Eddie and not without reason-I'm crazy all right. I agreed to something no one should ever have to do-Hell I didn't just agree to it, let's be honest- it's partly my fault the idea ever was suggested. I think so any way, it's hard to remember now amidst all the chaos of the past six months. I can't stop thinking about it. I mean that, when I eat, when I wash, when I shave, when I sleep. If I weren't already crazy it would drive me mad.   
  
And even though I know deep down in the rational part of me that is my voice of reason, that it wasn't really him, try convincing my heart that. I have a conscience you know. Hell yeah, I DO have a conscience and it won't let me sleep.   
  
It was alive. It isn't any more. I killed it.  
  
Doesn't help to call it it. It. Him. Foster. Whatever.  
  
Could you do it? I ask you, could you do what I did without feeling something? Not possible. You'd have to be crazy, mad, a lunatic, wacko, one can short of a full...well you get the picture. Sure you do.  
  
My little buddy.  
  
Didn't trust him at first-well I am paranoid, you know that already. Trust no one. But believe the unbelievable. He didn't say a lot that first time. He looked weird-a cold look in his eyes, unshaven, he smelt like a man on the run smells; desperate, out of control. I had no room in my life for complications like him, did not want to accept his wild story. I did not want the outside world to come barging into my trailer like that. No way Jose. I told him straight; go away, I don't believe you.   
Believe the unbelievable. Yeah, sure. I'm Eddie, fly me.  
  
I can live without close friends. When you have friends you become responsible, they are a burden. That's what friends are-a liability. I prefer to keep people at a distance, it's safer that way. They are all out to get you. Use you. I like my friends in cyberspace not in my personal space. I'm an in your head kind of guy. You know what I mean? I live my life in my head. Don't need to be screwed around by other people.  
  
So he's there in my trailer like a mad lost hobo. He had nowhere to go. I recognised that look he had, that way of standing, that desperation. Been there, done that, bought the T shirt. He had that haunted look that's for sure. The look of a man who's lost the most important thing in the world and is out to wreak vengeance somewhere. Somehow. I can do without those sort of obligations.   
  
But I'm a soft guy at heart and I could see he needed help. There was intelligence in those sad eyes and compassion too, almost hidden under the hopelessness.  
  
And of course I didn't believe him.  
  
He believed his story though-totally convinced like they all do. I may be paranoid but I ain't no fool. I attract these nuts. I get email from them all the time. I learnt to recognise them early on. I'm a conspiracy theorist, my paranoia has its roots in fact so I don't go for none of that alien abduction bullshit. Aliens disguised as a man's wife? Give me a break.  
  
I got to wondering if he'd escaped from somewhere, toyed with the idea of doing a search on the most wanted files, the local lunatic asylum's missing persons. Huh, I found out later he had done- he had escaped from somewhere, a regular Houdini. Go figure. Got out of a hospital for crazies cos he killed his wife.  
Hannah. A sadness came over him when he talked about her, she was real enough for sure. His voice would lower and grow croaky as if he was choking back sobs. His eyes would water. He'd get that photo out and rub it like it was the magic lamp and the genie would pop out and grant him a wish. I know what that wish would be too. To turn the clock back to the day before she was taken from him, the day they turned his life upside down.  
  
No one should have to go through what he went through, is still going through. No one should have to lose everything cos of some damned prophecy. Not even a twice blessed man. 'Twice cursed'-you said it, man. More than twice.   
  
So he's there in my trailer chasing away the best bit of stuff to come my way in a year; man she was beautiful. He chopped her arm off and with my sword. Saved my life, I guess. Even then I wasn't sure about the alien shit but humored him, I owed him that much. Hell, the guy nearly choked to death on my behalf. I gotta say he's tough, and I was impressed.  
  
So I helped him, so call me crazy. Crazy Eddie and the twice blessed man. We make a great team.  
  
2/3  
  
I ask you again, how would you feel about it, huh? Like your brain was gonna explode? Like you daren't close your eyes because you're afraid of what you'll see when you do?   
  
He was like a brother. What am I saying? He IS like a brother. Hell, man I can't stop thinking about him like he's dead. And he's not. Just his doppelganger. It had his eyes for God's sake. Blue eyes.   
There's always a sadness in those eyes, you know. I avoid looking into them. They are so much older than the rest of him. They've seen things no one should have to see. A dead wife, a severed head, flesh burning up and disappearing. Mad crazy things.   
  
He had to learn to be like them, to do things ordinary people don't do. Like using a gun and killing them. They are alien but they look like us. It feels like you are killing another human. Believe me, I know all too well.  
  
He learnt to use a gun and so did I. I had to practise with that rifle and it's not as easy as you might think. I had to prepare for it-I couldn't afford to make a mistake for both our sakes. A misfire and we'd have had it. Target practice: so much target practice. And every time I got nearer to that red dot on the heart MY heart skipped a beat knowing what I was gonna have to do. I had to try to focus on the greater picture; on the reason why we had to do this. Why I had to do this. Let's face it, it was no big deal for Foster, was it? All he had to do was set the situation up then hide. He'd be the martyr. And what of crazy Eddie? He'd be the villain who killed his best buddy. We'd both be murderers. Ironic, huh? Foster the martyr and Eddie the murderer.  
  
I really did not want to have to do it even though I knew what was at stake. Even with the knowledge that it wasn't really him. Yeah a fat lot of good that knowledge was when it had his face. It looked like Cade, stood like Cade, was wearing his clothes and it had his eyes for God's sake. Blue and piercing but more innocent, no humor or spark about them. It was the innocence that got to me and almost froze my finger to the trigger. Yeah it was the hardest thing I had to do.   
  
It fell like Cade- a backwards leap. I had to watch-it was on every monitor; full screen in full color. A hundred Cade's flipping over backwards to hit the cold studio floor. It bled like Cade; a ragged wound pumping black blood over one shoulder to puddle on the vinyl with a dripping sound that reminded me of the trailer's faulty plumbing. A heart struggling to beat like a trapped bird's wings, over and over and over on every screen.  
  
It isn't him. It isn't him.  
  
I kept repeating that mantra over and over but my eyes told me a different truth. I tried to make myself hard like the metal of the gun I still clutched with white knuckles. Someone was shouting his name, a woman was screaming, a man's voice: "It's through the heart, Gwen," and lights flashing. But all I could focus on was the sprawled body of my best friend, wide eyed on the floor, blood trickling from a mouth that formed a soft smile. On every monitor, everywhere I looked.   
  
I bowed my head and closed my eyes against the heart breaking image. I could not even consider the fact that our careful plan had worked perfectly.  
  
It was too perfect. We convinced the world that Cade Foster, alien hunter and twice blessed man was dead.   
  
And I believed it too.   
  
End part 2  
  
Part 3  
  
So here I am now stuck in this dichotomy of feeling. I know I did not kill him. I know it. Hell I just spoke to him, of course he's not dead. But my heart is having a hard time accepting it. I grieved for him. I cried tears-look at my eyes, they're still red.   
  
I am human after all.   
  
Not some heartless Gua.  
  
The way my life is now, well it sucks, it really sucks big time. I choke up every time I talk to him. I want to push him away and hug him at the same time. Cade you're dead, thank God you're alive.  
  
I don't know when it happened, I guess it was a gradual thing. He was a stranger, a man on the run, someone I should be wary of one minute and the next he was as close as any man's brother. That's what happens in times of danger, in times of stress, you get very close. You bond. I was hiding in my car when I first saw him Man I was shit scared thinking he was gonna kill me. I had my sword (the one that killed Lincoln, yeh) and I threatened him. Didn't want no crazy guys with tales of alien BS invading my life. I really did not like him and I told him so. He looked like he was gonna cry when I told him to get a life. I won't ever forget the way his voice broke when he replied he had no life-they'd taken it from him. Well, guess what buddy, here I am feeling like I took your life from you, your breathing lovin' life.  
  
Get over it, Eddie.  
  
Hell, I'll get over it. I'm a survivor.  
  
I guess we formed a bond but when it happened I can't tell. Before I knew it he had his own bunk in my trailer, had stashed his swag bag and I'd scanned his damned book onto my hard drive and given him a key. He didn't spend much time in the trailer of course. For a long time he worked alone: following leads, sleeping in motels, wearing identities I fabricated for him. But we were always in touch by cellphone or that nifty gadget I fixed up for him to wear in his ear. I'd be here in the trailer, fixing up the car, mending the roof, surfing, following up e mail leads or just browsing through the book. And he'd be out there looking for them.   
  
Soon we had a name for them: the Gua. And an idea as to how they worked. We learnt gradually that they had infiltrated most areas of society. Teaming up with Foster began to look a lot more dangerous than I'd anticipated, than I was really prepared for. So I let him go out and do the dangerous stuff whilst I backed him up from the safety of my trailer. I may be crazy but I have a keen sense of self preservation. That was before I really got to know him well. Before I started to really care what happened to him. And before I realised how important he was to humanity's survival.  
  
So when did hiding away become less than satisfying for me? I can't remember. I know I began to tire of turning up to patch him up, pick him up, sort him out. It's not easy hearing your friend being beaten, shot, stabbed and not be able to do a damn thing about it except listen to his labored breathing in your ear phones and pray he'll survive. It's not easy finding your friend semi-conscious in a motel, a parking lot, an alleyway, a field, a deserted road...you name it- and know that a hospital is not an option. It's not easy having a wanted man for a friend. My medical skills have improved so much since I met Foster I could get a medical degree. Eddie Nambulous MD. Sounds cool, huh?  
  
So yeah, gradually I got more active, got out a bit more, drove around a bit, got a taste for the thrill of danger. Watched his back more closely. Still paranoid, still crazy but a bit more gregarious. Who'd have guessed? Huh? Yeah I eventually got confident enough to agree to shooting him.   
  
Crazy crazy Eddie. What was I thinking? I guess I thought I could do it easy peasy. No hassle. Just like playing Tomb Raider. A clone is like a virtual person, isn't it? It's not human. No consciousness, well not this one, not yet. Not ever, now. It's got no soul so it doesn't really matter what you do with it, does it? It was manufactured, not a person at all, a husk, a thing with no rights. Not human so no human rights. But God it LOOKED so real. I wasn't prepared for how much it was HIM. Sure it didn't talk or move hardly, but it was his body. It was too like Cade. Too much like Cade. Messing with science, with DNA, it ain't good. Playing God ain't good. They got hold of his DNA and made a perfect copy. We stole it. we used it. We-I killed it.   
  
And now I'm thinking did we have the right to use it like that?   
  
Now I'm thinking if it's so easy to kill a clone like that what next? The Gua look at us as nothing more than clones don't they? They don't rate us much in evolutionary terms.   
Unsettling thoughts eh?  
  
Yeh, I guess that's what keeps me awake nights now. Not the threat of the First Wave, not the fear of getting caught by them. No, it's the fear of what I might be capable of. And the suspicion that we're not all that different from the Gua after all.   
  
Believe me. I know.  
  
  
End  
  
  



End file.
